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Spain Story
The Death of a Doorman
My previous portero died unexpectedly. One day he was there – a fat and jovial man, bald, glasses, head pushed a little forward giving way to the staircase of rolls in the back of his neck, always with a kind word, or the latest English phrase he’d taught himself, Goot eebening, or just to hold…
March 10, 2022
Spain Story Uncategorized
El Abuelo’s Ashes
Buenaventura Bravo’s main job during the Spanish Civil War was getting his goats out of the village and into the mountains. This was no top-secret mission, entrusted upon young ’Ventura by the besieged Republican government in Madrid, just something that had to be done; this was the day-to-day life that continued to unfold regardless of…
April 11, 2020
Bali Story
The Problem with Assimilation
“The problem with Muslims is that they don’t assimilate,” announced the Australian owner of a Balinese sports bar. The red-nosed sexagenarian was drunk on his own stock and the admiration of his fellows, swinging off a barstool in the joint he’d made his own. “They don’t assimilate and they don’t respect our way of…
November 3, 2019
Feature
I Travelled Spain With 29 Women
A love letter to my she-wolfpack This is an ode to the 29 women whom I just travelled with. 29 babes. The 29 femme fantasies, 19-to-29-year-old horny, but mostly hungry college co-eds; two-and-a-half dozen unapproachable beauties, the kinds that slack jaws when they walk in bars, make men gape agaw and bend over backwards…
July 17, 2019
Guide Spain
The Astray Guide to Travelling Spain
Where: Modern Spain is best defined as occupying most of the land that was conquered by, and then reclaimed from, the Moors, minus the kingdom to the west that wasn’t unified under the marriage of Ferdinand of Aragon to Isabella of Castille. You know, everything south of Andorra but north of Africa that uses the…
December 14, 2018
Features
The Astray Guide to Not Looking Like a Tourist in Spain
Did you know that Spaniards have their own term of disendearment for us? Well they do, it’s guiri (pronounced giddy), and it basically means sunburnt foreigner who puts chorizo in all their dishes, but is also levelled at us whenever we commit a faux pas while travelling in the kingdom. Your Spanish friends/girlfriend/in-laws will place hand…
October 23, 2018
Features
Why Do A Writing Workshop In Spain?
¿Porque no? In line with our ethos to foster writers and writing in the most interesting and pleasant places on Earth, the time is ripe to offer our world-famous and highly recommended travel writing workshops in Europe. We’re kicking it off in Spain, the peninsula below the Pyrenees and above Africa, but not including Portugal.…
September 5, 2018
Yarns
A Gringo Goes to Salvador’s Carnival
When you hear 'Ziriguidum', you’re required to put both hands on your knees and bend down like you’re addressing an imaginary, ground-borne squirrel. Once you’re in that position – knees bent 45 north, waist 45 south – you extend your right arm to full, then the fingers on your right hand totally, as if hand-gesturing to…
June 24, 2018
Current Affairs
The Angry White Man in the Van
Another attack in a major city has left us needing to talk about the angry young man in the room, or better, in the hire van. In Toronto, on Monday, a young man drove a van through crowds of pedestrians, killing 10 and injuring 15 more. He wasn’t an Islamist, nor was he an adherent…
April 26, 2018
Yarns
We Survived the Tokyo Snowstorm
Our roommate, J, told me this was the coldest winter Tokyo had experienced in 48 years. He told this to Gemma, too. Information from Jonny is taken with a grain of rice, but there’s no denying that it has been exceptionally cold. Almost-50-year-storm cold? How would I know? J had the propensity of cornering us…
February 27, 2018

Astray is a storytelling project centred on travel, community, identity and liberation.

We’re based out of Lenapehoking / New York City: the homeland of the Lenape. Specifically, we’re in Manhattan: a name that comes from Mannahatta, meaning “island of many hills”. As grateful guests in this city, we recognize the strength and resilience of the Lenape, and extend our reverence to all Indigenous peoples everywhere. This acknowledgement comes from our commitment to working against the ongoing legacies of settler colonialism.